I think that Savannah Guthrie is lying. Miri from WTPOTUS blog wrote a blog that was Blog of the Day at The Post&Email yesterday. She did a very careful analysis of the press gaggle report from the White House that was done by Carney, Bauer and Pfeiffer before 0 had his little speech.
Carney said: Let me just get started. Thank you for coming this morning. I have with me today Dan Pfeiffer, the President’s Director of Communications, as well as Bob Bauer, the President’s White House Counsel, who will have a few things to say about the documents we handed to you today. And then we’ll take your questions. I remind you this is off camera and only pen and pad, not for audio.”
Miri commented:
No photos, so nobody can zoom in later to more closely examine the document they planned to quickly flash at reporters, from the podium? No audio, so any unfortunate or illogical statement made by Obama’s lawyer or spokesperson could later be explained away as something a reporter “misheard”?
Later during the question time:
REPORTER: Will the actual certificate be on display or viewable at any – (laughter.)
Miri says: I had to enlarge that for emphasis. Will the ACTUAL CERTIFICATE be ON DISPLAY OR VIEWABLE? Thank you, anonymous reporter!
Why did they LAUGH? Because they ALREADY knew the answer? The answer: a big FAT NO.
REPORTER: Will the President be holding it?
PFEIFFER: He will not, and I will not leave it here for him to do so.
Miri: Pfeiffer implies that what he holds is the actual certificate. But Obama will NOT hold it; will not avow it; will not recognize it; and Pfeiffer will take it with him before Obama arrives to speak. Why?
PFEIFFER: But it will — the State Department of Health in Hawaii will obviously attest that that is a — what they have on file. …
Miri’s comment:Obama’s spokesperson has just given the HDOH permission to speak on this issue. He’s given permission to ask them to “attest that that is what they have on file.” But even if someone asks, Pfeiffer refers to that OBJECT in his hands, which reporters cannot examine and which will NOT be “on display or viewable.” So the HDOH will not attest to the authenticity of the online pdf or those document copies handed out to the media (as with the COLB).
Please read the whole thing either at Post&Email or WTPOTUS blog.
So if there were no cameras, how did Savannah take a photo?
If no one in the room got to actually examine the thing that was held up for their view and Pfeiffer was not even leaving it for 0 to handle, how did she get to feel the seal? And what a strange thing to say! If you actually got close enough to do what she says you would not have to “feel” the embossed seal, you could see it clearly. I have never seen an official document with an embossed seal where I could not clearly see it with my own eyes!
Thank you for that reference. I tried and tried to find any first-person account of what actually happened at that gaggle but apparently just didn’t know the proper thing to Google or where to look. It seemed odd to me from the very beginning that there weren’t photos and that reporters WEREN’T talking about how they saw and/or felt the raised seal. The first I was able to find of anything that claimed to be a photo was the one that was by J Scott Applewhite, and I could not find a seal on it. Then somebody pointed out to me that if you manipulate the contrast and brightness there are some squiggles there. I did an analysis of that on my blog, comparing those squiggles with what a genuine raised seal looks like when photographed - using photos of the seal from my daughter’s death certificate.
Then I found something by a Radio News Network reporter from Sweden, can’t remember her name now. But she said that the certified long-form was in the room, that the guy was pointing at the raised seal. The only contact information I could find for her was Twitter and I don’t do Twitter so I couldn’t contact her.
Then this photo showed up.
And now there’s this report from the press gaggle report, which I will go look at now.
The long and the short of all of this is that neither the stories about what the reporters were allowed to see nor the seals nor anything about the images line up. They just further illustrate the way both Obama’s people and the media are flipping us off and then acting like we’re crazy for not liking the putrid games they’re playing with us. Disgusting.
That was an EXCELLENT blog post! Thank you so much for pointing that out to me. And it certainly does raise the issue of when either Guthrie or Applewhite could have taken photos of the actual BC.
My skin crawls just having to listen to the lies that these people told in that gaggle. Kudos to whatever reporter mentioned that showing the actual documents and having them available for inspection would go a long way towards settling the issue. Interesting how Obama’s people evaded that whole issue by claiming that some people will never be satisfied.
So basically from what was in that gaggle report put out by the White House (full transcript at http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/04/27/press-gaggle-press-secretary-jay-carney-4272011 ), what happened was somebody handed out photocopies to the reporters, a guy came out holding a green piece of paper that none of the reporters could really see and claimed it had a seal on it, they did some Q/A wherein the lawyers lied through their teeth about Hawaii policy and what they had already supposedly done and how there weren’t any questions or concerns about Obama’s documentation between 2008 and now, and then the guy who supposedly had the copy of the BC took it with him and Obama came in and lectured about how he shouldn’t have to show anything to anybody but is willing to give this lecture because there are some real kooks out there who won’t ever believe anything anyway.
Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. This is the most blatant slap in the face and avoidance of any kind of transparency that I could imagine. A guy holding up a piece of paper and making claims about it while practically saying, “Nanner-nanner-nanner. We have it but you can’t see it. PPfftth in your face!”